kenny the kangaroo has been on a pennsylvania/industrial kick the past few weeks. One of the books was by William Deitrich, the baller who donated like $200 million to Pitt before he died. The book was called something like "Eminent Pittsburghers" and was a collections of articles Deitrich wrote for a magazine. They were brief biographies of the titans of pittsburgh. Some of the articles were boring, but it was cool to learn about some lesser known names around Pittsburgh-Michael Benedum, Joe C Trees, etc. Those guys were ballers who got ish done.

Currently reading a book about the history of railroads in pennsylvania, and another one about the collapse of the penn central railroad.

Troy Loney wrote:I finished Blood Meridian last weekend. I can't get into that prose, it might just be a little bit above me. My mind wanders off a bit and I floated through some parts. Although I will say, there are some really crazy, captivating passages in that book.

it does get faulkneresque in large deposits. its a book thats tailor-made for the big screen to give it a better sense of itself. id love to see Daniel Day-Lewis play the judge. It would be radical.

Finished up The Hobbit awhile back. Starting through the Silmarillion... not much easier to read than I recall the first time, at least in the early going. After this, I think I will stick to listening to Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth for my First Age of Middle Earth fix.

I'm done with my Murakami kick, I read Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood and the Wind up Bird Chronicle. The first two were stange highly entertaining coming of age stories, and the Wind up Bird was a crazy mystery novel. This poor guy had all this insane stuff happen to him, some consciously, some in the subconscious. He's just struggling to figure it out and who all these crazy people he keeps meeting have to do with it.

Reading Notes from the Underground now....i can't believe I didn't read this book back in college.

Pavel Bure wrote:Batman: Knightfall Volume 1, pretty great so far. I don't know if I have the stamina to attack volume 2 yet but I've got quite a few flights coming up so we'll see.

Finished volume 2 and 3. It was pretty darn good but they totally cut out how Bruce's back gets fixed you just turn the page and all of a sudden there's Bruce no longer in a wheelchair.

No Mans Land next? Are you going through and trying to read them in order? It took me about 2 years to finally catch up on all the graphic novels up through Grant Morrisons run and now I'm up to new 52 reboot. Went through the 1st year reading Batman, Detective, Dark Knight, and Batman and Robin. It's tough keeping up, I probably have 4 months of comics at the comic store, I think I may stop getting the weekly trades and go back to waiting for the graphic novels.

Has/did (which is it?) anyone read Essex County by Canadian cartoonist Jeff Lemire? It's a trilogy of graphic novels dealing with rural life in Ontario and naturally involves a lot of hockey. It really is quite good.

Big Easy Pens Fan wrote:Just finished John Grisham's The Associate. Excellent in the Grisham tradition. Of course, I'm a big fan of "lawyer" stories, so I might not be the best book reviewer in this case.

I am dubious how any book that makes the practice of law seem interesting and exciting could possibly have any relation to real life.

Incidentally, she's working on a similar book herself right now that I will likely be promoting on here in a few months.

My mom's book is complete, and I think she did an excellent job. Honest introspection on mortality, the fragility of the human psyche, and finding meaning and fulfillment in life. She's very excited about it. Pick one up if you think you might enjoy it.